Tokyo Bound

I’ll admit it, I’m super excited to be on my way to Tokyo. This is the third time since 2019 I’ve booked a trip to Japan. I don’t have to tell anyone why a trip ANYWHERE in 2020 wasn’t happening. And it wasn’t much better in 2021, when Omicron surfaced. My Grammy always said, “the third time never fails”, and I’m REALLY hoping that this time the old girl is right. You see, right now my travel buddy Kris, and I are experiencing a bit of a kerfluffle. Our plane has had technical problems that United was unable to fix, so we have all deplaned and are sitting in the terminal while we await our fate.

A business class ticket allows you to board early, so I had plenty of time to blog while the rest of the plane boarded initially. This is what I wrote 2 hours ago, when I thought we were on our way:

It’s a 14 hour trip, so I decided to live large and booked business class. The price fluctuated between $10,000 (when I booked) and $20,000 ( a month ago), so I used all of my miles (and Mike’s) and transferred points from my Chase Sapphire Reserve account to reach the 400,000 points required for round trip business class flights. It was clear that transferring points is far better than using the points as cash. 400,000 points would get me $4,000 in cash that I could put toward the $10,000 ticket. You don’t have to be a financial wizard to figure out which would be the better deal.

The map atop this post shows most, but not all of our itinerary. The majority of our group of 14 elected to do the 3 day post trip to Hiroshima, which couldn’t fit on the photo.

Our wonderful guide, Mori, has been communicating with us already via WhatsApp. He sent us this map, with the good news that we should have a wonderful cherry blossom show in Kyoto.

We had been warned to pack lightly, partly because hotel rooms are small by US standards and partly because we need to only take an overnight bag on the bullet train. (Our larger luggage will be transported by van). I was glad to learn that some hotels have laundry facilities on site, so opted to do carry on only, and it looks like this:

For this trip I used packing cubes (the bottom of my blue bag is a detachable packing cube) and a combo of rolling and folding.

We shall see how wrinkled the contents are after I arrive and whether one method produces superior results.

The biggest challenge has been weather uncertainty. I didn’t decide till this morning which coat I’d be taking, finally settling on my down coat with a hood.

Because I booked my own flight, I didn’t get an included transfer from airport to hotel. I could have purchased one from OAT for $150 one way.

Mori told me I could get a taxi for about $50, or take mass transit for less than $5. We shall see how adventurous I feel when we land. If I’m not jet lagged I will likely be up for the adventure option, but if I’m feeling crappy, it will be taxi.

Such is the world of travel. You have to be ready to expect the unexpected. Fortunately, this is a chill crowd. No nastiness. People patiently waiting, even the kids.

What will become of our heroines???

I’m not going to leave you with a cliff hanger. They finally fixed the problem and we were able to reboard, so I’m back all comfy in seat 5A, just almost 3 hours later. Let me tell ya, that Tokyo taxi option is looking better and better.